Bike Sharing Service Spinlister Launching in New York April 1st

'Airbnb for bikes' hits the Big Apple.

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to go to Paris, you may have noticed that many of the effortlessly posh locals get around town on matching bikes. It’s not some hip bike brand they’re advertising, it’s actually Vélib’, Paris’s public bike sharing program launched by Mayor Bertrand Delanoë in 2007.

Spinlister, a startup founded by New York entrepreneur Will Dennis, takes that idea and turns it on its head. Instead of a large-scale public bike rental system, why not a peer-to-peer bike rental marketplace?

“We’re kind of like Airbnb or Getaround but for bikes and see a huge opportunity within the collaborative consumption recreation space,” Mr. Dennis told Betabeat over email.

Bike lovers can rent and list their wheels on the site, and the prices are way cheaper than programs like Vélib’. Some bikes are even available for $1 a day.

We first heard of Spinlister when they participated in Common Pitch last month, a pitch convention for startups that focuses on collaboration. They already had listings in 70 cities in 20 countries, but since then they’ve added five more cities to their marketplace, including New York. The service is currently in beta for New York and San Francisco, but will officially launch for both cities on April 1st.

Spinlister’s launch pre-empts New York’s own public bike sharing effort, NYC Bike Share, which is slated to launch this summer.

If you can’t wait the few weeks until Spinlister’s official launch, Mr. Dennis and a few other New Yorkers already have their bikes listed on the site. Mr. Dennis rides a shiny blue fixie, coyly named “The Blue Lady Killer.”

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